Poesia Estrangeira - Academia Brasileira de Letras

Tradução de Benedicto Ferri de Barros1 st september 1939I sit in one of the divesOn the Fifty-second StreetUncertain and afraidAs the clever hopes expireOf a low dishonest decade:Waves of anger and fearCirculate over the brightAnd darkened lands of the earth,Obsessing our private lives;The unmentionable odour of deathOffends the September night.Acurate scolarship canUnearth the whole offenceFom Luther until nowThat has driven a culture mad,Find what ocurred at Linz,What hugh imago madeA psychopatic god:I and the public knowWhat all schoolchildren learn,Those to whom evil is doneDo evil in return.Exiled Thucydides knewAll that a speech can sayAbout Democracy,And what dictators do,The elderly rubbish they talkTo an apathetic grave;166